云公司大举上市有玄机

    Greenway公司在其财年中截至去年6月30日前都显示为净盈利，但最近一个财季中却报告了40.6万美元的净亏损。近期IPO的4家云公司中，Guidewire是唯一一家持续盈利的。去年，其税前利润为830万美元，最近一个财季，利润则为790万美元。

    这些足以解释为什么在近期上市的4家云公司中，Guidewire的股价表现最好。它的成功似乎也为那些收入规模明显偏小、尚未盈利的云公司铺平了IPO的道路。不过，尽管IPO市场一向对赤字没有好感，这些公司还是获得了热捧。

    原因可能要归功于人们对云技术的狂热。或者这也可能是因为Facebook这个庞然大物上市在即，华尔街已经开始提前点火造势，推动更多基于网络的公司进行IPO。Facebook及其投资银行自然乐于看到网络公司IPO后在初期仍然表现红火。但是近期市场情况表明，很多刚刚上市时春风得意的公司几个月后就会偃旗息鼓。

    也许除了Guidewire，上述云公司的IPO可能也难逃此劫。对于这些始终亏损、不断烧钱的公司来说，它们的股票定价算是高昂：Greenway的市值是其历史收入的4.5倍，Brightcove是6.1倍，而Bazaarvoice则高达14.6倍。目前，分析人士和媒体记者们正在对Facebook的财务状况进行透彻的审查，如果投资者对上面这些股票也能报以这种态度，它们可能就不会像现在这样风光了。

    译者：清远

    Greenway showed a net profit in its fiscal year through June 30, but slipped to a $406,000 net loss in its most recent quarter. Guidewire is the only consistently profitable company of the four recent cloud IPOs, reporting a $8.3 million profit last year before taxes and $7.9 million profit in its most recent quarter.

    All of which explains why Guidewire is the best performing stock of the four cloud companies to go public in recent weeks. Its success seemed to pave the way for cloud IPOs that were significantly smaller in revenue and that had yet to post a profit. But somehow they have all managed to receive warm welcomes in a IPO market that is not always kind to red ink.

    It may be chalked up to cloud mania. Or it may be Wall Street priming its IPO for more web-based offerings ahead of the mammoth Facebook deal. It's very much in the interest of Facebook -- and its investment banks -- to see web IPOs perform well after they debut. But recent history shows that many web offerings that start strong out of the gate languish after a few months.

    That may be the case with these cloud IPOs as well, except perhaps for Guidewire. For companies that are losing money and burning through cash, they are priced richly: Greenway is trading at 4.5 times its historical revenue, Brightcove is trading at 6.1 times, and Bazaarvoice at an expensive 14.6 times revenue. If investors were to put the kind of critical scrutiny to these stocks that analysts and reporters are applying to Facebook's financials, they might not be faring so well.